Takizawa To start with the inspiration for development, as we were developing Wii U, we talked about how we would handle a new Zelda game for it, and as we thought about that
Iwata You also made Zelda HD Experience. ( Zelda HD Experience: Revealed during E3 2011, a tech demo that showed the hardware capabilities of the Wii U console using the game world from The Legend of Zelda series.)
Takizawa Yeah, that was a natural evolution of Twilight Princess, while we also experimented with an illustrated taste as opposed to something that was photorealistic. Apart from that, we tinkered with taking data from previous Zelda games and simply plugging it into Wii U in HD to see what it would be like. Dohta-san really applied himself to the actual work of that.
Iwata Well, we have a wealth of images, so a programmer can do quite a lot by working at it.
Takizawa Thats right. We took the various versions of Link from the Zelda HD Experience, Sword and The Wind Waker and lined them up in the same setting. We used practically the same shader and brought out the same shading, and Link from The Wind Waker made an overwhelmingly strong impact. He exerted some kind of unnatural pressure.
Iwata He wasnt doing anything. His appearance alone stood out.
Takizawa Yeah! And it looked natural. We thought that was amazing, so we set up the sea and islands from The Wind Waker, put them on the Wii U and adjusted the images. That resulted in great images with vibrant sunlight and superb contrast.
Iwata Is that what we showed in the January Nintendo Direct?
Takizawa Yes.
Dohta I was doing that work, when suddenly I got an e-mail from Aonuma-san asking how long it would take to pull it off.
Iwata Aonuma-san had sprung into action. And with a question that pointed directly at the possibility of the project. (laughs)
Dohta Yeah! (laughs) To be honest, wed secretly been calculating it, so I answered that we could do it so it can be released by fall 2013.
Iwata Aonuma-san, I suppose you were surprised they could do it in under a year.
Aonuma I sure was! (laughs) If they had said it would take time, I dont think I would have said we should do it, but under a year was extremely attractive! And I thought making an HD version of The Wind Waker had value as a way to observe how we would make the visuals for the Zelda game for Wii U.
